Everything great in the world is done by neurotics; they alone founded our religions and created our masterpieces. ~Marcel Proust

Saturday, July 29, 2017

All You Can Eat Meat, The Diet That Works

Today I'd like to talk a little bit about my favorite subject, me.

About two weeks ago, while on the Beartooth Rally in Red Lodge, Montana....friends of mine shot photos of me. I guess I must have been in denial over my weight gain. I had ballooned up to 285 pounds and although I am 6'4"- I still looked like a sausage on a stick.

It is so easy to eat this shit they sell us. The weight gain is always subtle. Just a pound or two here and there and voila! Before you know it- you look normal in a buffet line or at Walmart.

I can't give up that easy.

I have been fighting a war with my body for ten years now. My fattest was in 2007- I tipped the scales at 300. My slimmest was also that year, 218 pounds. From a 40" waist to a 34" and I could have fit into a 32".

Each time I gain weight which tends to be every two years, I get fed up and employ the masochistic Atkins diet. It works. But I have made improvements on it. That's what I want to talk about today.

As you know, Atkins is basically all you can eat protein. Meat, cheese, eggs, and a few vegetables. At first you don't mind it- but after about 100 eggs, 50 steaks, and 10 pounds of bacon it gets old. I used to supplement the diet with V-8 juice every morning, a few dietary supplements.

The other problem with Atkins is that as you are starving your body and giving it no carbs- it in turn is shutting you down. I tend to feel sleepy and lethargic on this diet.

This time around I adjusted for all of that. It has been working well.

I went to Costco and bought two cases of those 11 oz protein drinks, one case of V-8. Some diet green tea, water, and coffee. About 100 bucks. I use Splenda or sugar free creamer.

Every morning, I drink 3 cups of coffee. I grab one of the protein drinks and swill that along with a handful of supplements, royal jelly, turmeric, multi vitamins. Once in awhile I throw in a boner pill. (Ha, just making sure you are still with me)

Lunch is always the hardest for me. I found something that works. Pizza Pie Cafe has a salad to go for 4 bucks or you can sit down for 6 bucks and and run through the salad bar twice. The advantages to this are enormous.

If you don't have a PPC near you- I'll bet you can find a decent salad bar and cut a deal with them.

PPC's salad bar is great. Everything you can eat on Atkins is in this salad bar. They have spinach or romaine- instead of that worthless iceberg lettuce. Toppings are black olives, mushrooms, sliced eggs, cubed ham and turkey, pepperoni, cubed red beets, shredded cheese, bacon bits and sunflower seeds. Cauliflower and broccoli. I shy away from the sunflower seeds in the first two week induction phase of Atkins.

The salad bar means that I don't have to go to the store, buy all those ingredients, boil eggs, cube meats, and then watch it all spoil sitting in my fridge. At six bucks a day, every day for 40 days, lunch is going to cost me 240 dollars. It would cost me more than that in time, gas, and the checkout line.

For dinner I always eat some meat, usually steak, hamburger, or chicken and cook some vegetables. You cannot use anything that is not green like carrots or corn. There is a lot of carbohydrates in those and not much vitamin value. I pretty much limit myself to 5 vegetables. Spinach, cauliflower with shredded cheese, green beans, brussel sprouts, and my favorite- asparagus.

For snacks I use pork rinds, pepperoni sticks, beef jerky. I drink lots of water. My entire fridge is filled with ten different kinds of drinks incl. sparking water, a case of Powerade Zero, Diet Splash, and almond milk is the only milk I like. Not only is it acceptable on the diet but a friend of mine (this is dairy central here) owns a giant milk operation. After hearing what he injects his cows with- I changed my mind about milk permanently. Not to mention- it has an animal smell to it that kind of makes me nauseous anymore. Almond milk is twice as expensive but it is healthier and Atkins acceptable. Get the original, sugar free kind.

I try to exercise just as often as my body will tolerate it. This is a must if you want to take weight off fast. I run/walk 5k every day, right after consuming coffee and my protein drink. This is probably at my peak energy level of the day. Exercise forces my body to burn fat because it has no carbohydrates to use.

I will only weigh myself three times. Once at the beginning of the diet, at day 20, and day 40. I am not interested in weighing myself every day because sometimes you lose nothing day to day and that tends to discourage me.

My best friend Doug lives in Hawaii. At age 55, he has a ripped, six pack ab package. Doug eats properly. Rice, tuna, black beans. He eats for fuel, not for taste. No cheap carbs, salt, or sugar. I was talking to him the other day and he said something that I will pass along here.

Doug said if people would simply wake up everyday and ask themselves, "What can I do that will be good for my body today" and then do it, our society wouldn't be the fattest in the world. A healthy lifestyle tends to be free of pain in later years. I get it. I have to get to the gym. I shall leave you with this.

5 comments:

Anonymous
said...

The meat and the vegetables sound fine. But if you want to be healthy, cut out the "diet" foods, especially the splenda and other fake sweeteners. It's all poison. And metabolizing all that protein gives your body more than enough elimination work to do, without also feeding it additional poisons to eliminate.

That's the main problem with the atkins diet -- too many poisons from "acceptable" quasi-foods and from metabolic byproducts. The diet could be easily improved by accounting for all this waste and aiding the body in elimination.

Even if you add a small amount of carbs, it's worth it if you increase your fiber intake enough to keep yourself clean inside. It also helps to fill you up, reducing your total caloric intake. Besides, the problem isn't carbs per se, it's "processed" carbs that tend to burn fast and dirty, with any excess rapidly stored as fat.

As for sweeteners, either use smaller amounts of real sugar, or else plant based sweetener (stevia), or else do without sweeteners, but either way eliminate all those artificial sweeteners and most other chemically modified items. It's all poison. Meat is food. Stuff made in a laboratory isn't food.

Hi Brian I have enjoyed your site for years!! Try the Virgin diet and see what your allergic too. Then cut it out. Might make food more enjoyable and get u off the diet Rollercoaster. Nothing diet or sugar free. No sweetners. Watch YouTube sweet misery video! All the Best!

Hi BrianAnother thing I failed to mention was marinate your meat in lemon or lime if organic is too expensive. It kills all the bad stuff they inject into the animals. Costco sells a non gmo balsamic vinegar and cheap organic extra virgin olive oil. Buy the tub of minced garlic and make your own dressing for the salads. I like 1/4 balsamic to 3/4 oil and add 2 whopping spoonfuls of garlic! Each oil has a smoke point too. Costco sells non gmo avocado oil which is Awesome for cooking at high Temps! Organic coconut oil I scoop and eat it! The weight loss cure from Kevin Trudeau! Another great book. Eggs need to be cooked on low or the cholesterol turns rancid! Google smokepoints for oils. Hope this helps.